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His harness clamoured, his sword tarnished for blood; he had fifteen hundred men in steel. That would mean fifteen hundred and one tarnishing blades, and the unvoiced reproaches of fifteen hundred and one suits of mail. In a word, the High Bailiff itched to try a fall with the redoubtable Galors de Born. He sent, therefore, a man to ring the great bell of the parish church.

The Abbot sang Mass, his old colleagues huddled in choir; the place echoed with the chastened snuffling he knew so well. Galors had no sentiment to pour over them. Standing, bowing, genuflecting, signing himself at the bidding of the bell, he had no eyes for any but the frail apparition whose crown of black seemed to weigh her toward the pavement.

Another side- cut beat his weapon down, and then a back-handed blow crashed into his gorget. He threw up his arms and staggered backwards; a last cut finished him. Galors with a cough that ended in a wet groan fell like lead. He never spoke nor moved again. Prosper sank on his knees, beaten out. Isoult started from the wood to hold him, but he waved her back. All was not done.

"For," said he, "in Malbank girls and boys swarm like dies on a sunny wall." The deceit implied was gross, yet the Abbot took it in his haste. "Thus you shall know her, Galors," he said.

Next day, as soon as the Countess had departed for High March, the Abbot Richard called Dom Galors, his almoner, into the parlour and treated him in a very friendly manner, making him sit down in his presence, and putting fruit and wine before him.

A great lady, my friend, and a young one, childless, it is said, without heir of her own. Morgraunt may go to the Crown or Holy Thorn and Gracedieu may divide it." "She may marry again," put in Galors. "She is twice a widow," the Abbot snapped him up, and gave his first shock. "She is twice a widow, once against her will. She will never marry again."

Before they had made their day's journey she had learnt all that she wanted to know, or rather what she knew already. It confirmed what Galors had told her: she believed his story. For her part Isoult, having once made the plunge, gave her heart its way, bathed it openly in love, and was not ashamed.

"Now, Galors," he said, in a new and short vein, "listen to me. I intend to do what I should have done fourteen years ago, when I held this girl in my two hands. I let slip my chance, and blame myself for it; but having slipt it indeed, it was gone until this charter of ours brought it back fresh. You know how we stand here, you and I and the Convent-all of us at the disposition of her ladyship.

"Sir Galors de Born," she had said, "is a late enemy of mine no longer to be feared, since I have won back all my fiefs by the readiness and prudent discretion of the High Bailiff of Wanmeeting."

But she began to think she might cope with Galors. When the asses were unloaded in the inn-yard, and the coal stacked under cover, Falve took his prisoner by the hand and led her by many winding lanes to his mother's shop. This was in Litany Row, a crazy dark entry over against the Dominican convent.